Insignia's DR710NA17 series of UHD televisions offer Roku TV functionality and 4K resolution at a low price, with poor contrast as the main trade-off.

Insignia is Best Buy's house brand, and like most house brands, it places an emphasis on affordability. That doesn't mean the products are low quality, though; you just need to temper your expectations. Really, you should temper your expectations whenever you see a 50-inch ultra high-definition (UHD, or 4K) television for $499.99, like the NS-50DR710NA17 we tested. This LED-backlit television is part of Insignia's DR710NA17 line of 4K Roku TVs, and the first 4K-capable Roku TV we've tested. Thanks to the Roku TV ecosystem, the television offers an impressive amount of connected and streaming features. It also delivers very accurate color reproduction for the price, but poor contrast makes it literally pale in comparison with our Editors' Choice for budget HDTVs, Vizio's Du series.

Editors' Note: This review is based on tests performed on the Insignia NS-50DR710NA17, the 50-inch version in the series. Besides the screen-size difference, the 55-inch $649.99 NS-55DR710NA17 is identical in features, and while we didn't perform lab tests on this specific model, we expect similar performance.

DesignLike most budget televisions, the 50DR710NA17 is simply designed. The screen is surrounded by a half-inch brushed black plastic bezel on all sides, with a curved extension on the bottom edge holding the Insignia logo, an indicator light, and the remote sensor. The stand is an open, slightly angled near-rectangle made of the same matte black plastic as the bezel, and connects to the television via two thick plastic legs.

All four of the 50DR710NA17's HDMI ports sit, along with a USB port, facing left on the back of the screen, easily accessible from the side. The antenna connector, a composite video input, an Ethernet port, and 3.5mm and optical audio outputs face downward. A row of buttons run along the lower left edge of the TV, a few inches from the HDMI ports.

The included remote uses a standard Roku TV design, which remains fairly consistent across all Roku TV manufacturers. It's a small, curved black wand, similar in shape and proportion to a Nintendo Wii remote. It features a large, prominent purple navigation pad flanked by Back/Home/Power buttons above and playback controls below. Four dedicated service buttons sit under the playback controls, offering instant access to Google Play, HBO Go, Netflix, and Sling TV. Finally, a volume rocker and Mute button sit on the right. This is an infrared remote, and doesn't include the headphone jack found on the remotes of the Roku 3 and Roku 4 media streamers. You can also control the television with the free Roku app for Android and iOS.

Roku TV FeaturesAs a Roku TV, the 50DR710NA17 uses Roku's simple, standardized interface for all of its menus and connected features. That means you can access the entirety of the Roku Channel Store for online services and apps. Physically connected video sources appear at the top of the home screen as icons, followed by any installed Roku channels (Roku's name for apps).

Hundreds of apps and services are available on the Roku Channel store, and all of the big names are accounted for: Amazon, Hulu, HBO Go, Google Play, Netflix, Sling TV, Vudu, and YouTube are some of the most prominent video services (iTunes is obviously not there, since this isn't an Apple product), with hundreds of smaller, genre- and network-specific ones also available. For music, you can access iHeartRadio, Pandora, SiriusXM, Spotify, Vevo, and many others (including the aforementioned Amazon and Google Play). And, since the 50DR710NA17 is 4K, there's a 4K content section that includes the aforementioned Amazon, Netflix, Vudu, and YouTube in addition to a dozen other services. If you can't find what you want, the Roku app can stream your own photos, videos, and music to the television.

The Roku TV interface tries to make everything as easy to use as possible, and this has meant simplifying the picture settings to only a handful of choices, with even the most common of granular adjustments like Brightness and Contrast hidden in the Advanced Picture Settings sub-menu. That's the case with the 50DR710NA17, but an improved Roku app helps solve some of these limitations. You can still make basic adjustments with the remote and on-screen menu, but an Expert Picture Settings menu on the app offers even more things to tweak, including extremely granular color correction.

Performance and ConclusionsWe test televisions using a DVDO AVLab 4K test pattern generator, a Klein K-10A colorimeter, and SpectraCal's CalMAN 5 software. After basic calibration and without using any of the app-accessible color adjustments, the 50DR710NA17 displayed a black level of 0.08cd/m2 and a peak brightness of 234.42cd/m2 for a 2,930:1 contrast ratio. The contrast is mediocre at best, but not particularly surprising for such an inexpensive television. However, the Vizio Du series offers a 50-inch model available for just $100 more, and it boasts a far greater 25,787:1 contrast ratio, thanks to its much better 0.01cd/m2 black level.

The chart above shows ideal color levels as boxes and measured color levels as dots. While the 50DR710NA17 disappoints with its contrast, its color accuracy is impressive. Out of the box, with no granular color adjustments made (besides setting the television to the warmest color temperature preset), all colors are pretty close to what they should be.

Input lag is the amount of time between a display receives a signal and the screen updates to reflect it. The 50DR710NA17 showed an input lag of 29 milliseconds, very good performance for a budget 4K television. It has a Game mode that can improve input lag at the cost of some picture quality, but it only reduced it a fraction of a millisecond to 28.8ms, and isn't worth the trade-off.

Thanks to its accurate colors, Mad Max: Fury Road played on the Samsung UBD-K8500 Ultra HD Blu-ray player looks very good on the 50DR710NA17. The television doesn't support the disc's high dynamic range (HDR) content, but even in standard dynamic range the bright, colorful film looks striking. The deep reds of fireballs pop out of the lighter reds of wasteland dirt and blues of the sky. The poor contrast is apparent in internal shots of Furiosa's truck's cab, where shadows tend to obscure finer details.

Issues with contrast are much more apparent in Daredevil on Netflix. Here, the disappointing black levels make the dark scenes very muddy, with textures and contours of characters' costumes, and even the characters themselves, disappearing into a blobby shadow. Brighter scenes, like at Nelson and Murdock's office, are much easier on the eyes, and any splash of light in dark alleys is welcome to make the action easier to follow.

Under normal viewing conditions, the 50DR710NA17 consumes 128 watts using our calibrated picture settings. The television also has a Low Power mode that slightly dims the screen and reduces energy consumption to 115 watts. That's about average for a 4K television this size.

Insignia's DR710NA17 series of budget 4K televisions offers satisfying bang for your buck, but you should keep its poor black levels and contrast in mind. If you can spend a bit more, Vizio's Du series offers much better picture quality. Vizio's smart TV interface isn't quite as refined as Roku TV, but the Du's improved image quality alone is worth it.

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About the Author

Will Greenwald has been covering consumer technology for a decade, and has served on the editorial staffs of CNET.com, Sound & Vision, and Maximum PC. His work and analysis has been seen in GamePro, Tested.com, Geek.com, and several other publications. He currently covers consumer electronics in the PC Labs as the in-house home entertainment expert... See Full Bio

Insignia NS-55DR710NA17

Insignia NS-55DR710NA17

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